Impact Avoidance and Minimization Plan: Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge, Leland Beach, Wasque Point, and Norton Point Beach Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard January 2020 The Trustees of Reservations 200 High Street Boston, MA 02110 Table of Contents 1. Site Description 1.a Maps……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 1 1.b Description of site…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3 1.c habitat and management………………………………………………………………………………………. 5 1.d Plover breeding a productivity………………………………………………………..…………………….. 6 2. Responsible Staff 2.a Staff biographies……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8 3. Beach Management 3.a.i Recreational Activities………………………………………………………………………………………… 9 3.a.ii Parking and Roads……………………………………………………………………………………….……. 9 3.a.iii Beach cleaning and refuse management…………………………………..……………………. 10 3.a.iv Rules and regulations…………………………………………………………………………….……….... 10 3.a.v Law enforcement…………………………………………………………………………….………………… 10 3.a.vi Other management……………………………………………………………………………………………. 10 3.a.vi Piping plover management……………………………………………………………………………….. 10 4. Covered Activities 4.1.a OSV use in vicinity of piping plover chicks…………………………………………………………….. 12 4.1.b Reduced symbolic fencing……………………………………………………………………………………. 15 4.1.c Reduced proactive symbolic fencing……………………………………………………………………… 16 4.2 Contingency Plan…………………………………………………………………………………….……………. 18 4.3 Violations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 18 4.4 Self-escort program reporting………………………………………………………………………………… 18 5. Budget………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 20 6. Mitigation plan……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 20 7. Itemization of costs for Predator Management…………………………………………………………..... 22 1 I. Site Description 1.a. Maps Figure 1: Katama to the Gut: Geography and Ownership of the Chappaquiddick Barrier Beach System Note that this older map still shows a breach, now closed, at the eastern end of Norton Point Beach. 1 Figure 2: Piping Plover Nest Locations and Key Trail Junctions, East/Leland Beaches, 2019 Circles indicate most likely points where plover broods may cross the dune system (crossover trails) or interfere with access to the East/Leland beach system as a whole (Dike Bridge). 2 Figure 3: Piping Plover Nest Locations and Access Points, Wasque/Norton Point, 2019 1.b. Description of property The Trustees of Reservations, one of the oldest land conservation organizations in the United States, was founded in 1891 by Charles Eliot, a landscape architect, who wanted to preserve open spaces from the dramatic urban development he was witnessing. Our mission is to preserve areas, for public enjoyment and use, of exceptional scenic, historic, and ecological value throughout Massachusetts. We frequently collaborate with other conservation groups and government agencies that share our mission. Sprawling across about 1000 acres, Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge East Beach and Wasque Reservation include (along with limited upland habitat) an extensive barrier beach system wrapped along the eastern and northern shores of Chappaquiddick Island. The beach ranges in form from classic beach/dune barrier between the ocean and a salt pond, to a precariously narrow sand and cobble spit near “the Gut,” to beach backed by bluffs and sandplain upland at Wasque Point. While for reasons of flexibility we are including this entire system in this Impact Avoidance and Minimization Plan (IAMP), along with Norton Point Beach (see below), a main focus of our attention is East and Leland Beaches. East Beach, owned by The Trustees, is a 1.7-mile stretch of Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge (Figure 2). This is a classic, dynamic barrier made up of an oceanside beach, dunes, cedar forests, and a low-energy bayside beach along a tidal salt pond. East Beach connects, both geographically and ecologically, with Leland Beach, a roughly mile-long stretch of barrier beach also made up of an oceanside beach, dunes, and a bayside beach along a salt pond. Leland is owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Division of Marine Fisheries) but managed by The Trustees of Reservations under a 1993 Memorandum of 3 Understanding (MOU). This MOU specifies that “…public access for sportfishing shall be a priority use of Leland Beach” and that the “Trustees agree to permit the general public to have access to Leland Beach through the Wasque Reservation and the Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge.” To the extent possible, our management of Leland Beach complies with these priorities. Several private landowners at Cape Poge have rights of passage over East Beach in order to reach their property. Continuing to the south of Leland Beach is the shoreline of Wasque Reservation. Subject to dramatic cycles of erosion and deposition, and frequently experiencing overwash during storms or even just astronomically high tides, Wasque is famed both for its scenic value and for the sportfishing associated with a strong tidal rip just offshore. In terms of recreational access, Wasque represents a key linkage for OSV travel between Leland and East Beaches to the north and Norton Point Beach, extending about two miles to the “mainland” of Martha’s Vineyard proper, to the west. Currently, Norton Point, which is owned by the County of Dukes County and managed by The Trustees under a Memorandum of Agreement, is the only land link between Martha’s Vineyard and smaller Chappaquiddick. Historically, this link has been broken periodically when storms breached the Norton Point barrier beach, connecting Katama Bay with the open Atlantic Ocean. During one such opening that lasted from 2007 to 2015, about 40 acres of upland was lost to erosion from Wasque Point (and from Wasque Reservation). Also lost was an OSV access point at the eastern end of Norton Point Beach, and while two pedestrian access points remain at Wasque Reservation, at present there is no vehicular entrance onto or egress from the barrier beach system between the Katama entrance to Norton Point and the Dike Bridge access gatehouse on East Beach. In addition to nesting shorebirds, use by transient birds at this site deserves mention. Outer beaches are used during spring and, especially, fall migration by species including black-bellied and semipalmated plovers, sanderling, and ruddy turnstone. Inside beaches, especially along Norton Point, where large areas of mudflat are exposed at low tide, host those species in addition to least, white-rumped, and semipalmated sandpipers, greater yellowlegs, willet, and American oystercatcher (which also breeds here in significant numbers). While not rivalling sites like South Beach/Monomoy on Cape Cod or Newburyport Harbor in importance, Chappaquiddick makes a significant contribution to the survival of migrant shorebirds, and The Trustees incorporate these transients into the planning and management. Taken together, these properties represent one grand, contiguous, roughly 11-mile stretch of habitat and will be combined under one Certificate of Inclusion. Effectively managing the sometimes competing uses of these properties, in light of the large areas and distances involved and the limited opportunities for vehicles or even pedestrians to enter or leave the beach, is a central preoccupation for The Trustees. Landowner permission (from Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries) to participate in the HCP on Leland Beach has been requested and will be obtained before implementation of any covered activities. Similar permission has been requested from the County of Dukes County for implementation of the plan on Norton Point. We will also be seeking a renewed Order of Conditions from the Town of Edgartown for oversand vehicle (OSV) use on the entire beach complex. Our Notice of Intent filing has been delayed by the internal process of developing a uniform statewide internal policy for beach management and OSV use; promulgation of this policy is necessary prior to filing a Notice of Intent, since the policy will 4 partly determine what activities and management will be included in the Notice of Intent. A valid Order of Conditions will be in hand prior to any exercise of our Certificate of Inclusion on East/Leland, Wasque, or Norton Point beaches. 1.c. Plover habitat and management This large, complex, and dynamic beach system offers a variety of resources used by plovers. Historically, pairs have nested on the ocean-side beach, on the inside salt pond shore, and in blow-outs or washover areas in the dunes. Experienced shorebird managers will not be surprised that plovers occasionally nest (or at least attempt to nest) in settings that do not conform to the accepted definition of ideal plover nesting habitat. The breeding population size and productivity have generally trended upward in recent years, while exhibiting considerable annual variation. Management of these birds is constantly challenging not just due to the vagaries of the birds themselves and the dynamics of a barrier beach, but because this entire location is heavily used by a range of overlapping human constituencies: homeowners accessing their property across the beach, surf fisherman, swimmers, sight-seers, and birders, some of them accessing the beach on foot, many others accessing it by means of 4WD vehicles. OSV access points to the beach system are currently limited to The Trustees’ Dike Bridge gatehouse, about in the middle of the overall East/Leland Beach complex, and a gatehouse at the western end of Norton Point beach. At both the Dike Bridge and Wasque, The Trustees maintains parking areas and pedestrian access points; pedestrian access is also possible